2023 Projects
Creating a Culture of Health Workshop Series
AgSafe, Modesto, CA
National attention to the agricultural community’s health and well-being began long before the COVID-19 pandemic. Headway has been made in the narrative; however, work still must be done in the overall industry. This project will create a series of three live workshops focused on stress mitigation. The goal of the Creating a Culture of Health Workshop Series is to provide a flexible educational opportunity via a live workshop format to teach the importance of identifying and addressing stressors and health-related issues in an effective and efficient manner. The digital nature of these live workshops will allow AgSafe to target participants in Arizona, California, and Hawaii.
Training Program for Health Professionals
CA Nurses for Environmental Health and Justice
Farmworkers experience social and physical determinants of health at a heightened level compared to the general population. Generally, occupational and environmental health is poorly integrated into nursing education. This deficit translates into missed opportunities for assessment, diagnosis, early treatment, referral, and education. We will address this issue by hosting trainings for health care professionals about using assessment questionnaires specifically developed for farmworkers. By increasing the competence of the health care workforce to address these risks, farmworker health and safety can be better promoted and protected.
2020–2021 Projects
Hawaii Agricultural Safety Webinar Series
AgSafe, Modesto, CA
Hawaiian growers often face innumerable challenges because they are thousands of miles away from traditional supply chains and resources. AgSafe has learned through previous outreach experiences that there is a desire and need for diverse learning opportunities and resources as well. This project aims to reduce barriers to learning opportunities for growers with the development of a four-part agricultural safety webinar series.
Agricultural Supervisor Training
California Farm Labor Contractor Association, Sacramento, CA
The California Farm Labor Contractor Association (CFLCA) plans to develop a dynamic program to train agricultural supervisors. The course will include several modules to enhance the agricultural supervisory knowledge base, including topics such as occupational health and safety. This class is vital to the betterment of the agriculture industry. Currently, there are no formal educational requirements for agricultural supervisors and this project will fill this important gap.
Developing, Implementing, and Evaluating an Outreach Program Regarding Agricultural All-Terrain Vehicle Safety
Farzaneh Khorsandi, PhD, UC Davis
A crush protection device (CPD) installed on an all-terrain vehicle (ATV) can potentially protect the operator in the event of a rollover incident by providing a crush protection zone under the vehicle. This project aims to develop, implement, and evaluate a training program regarding ATV safety and to install 10 CPDs for agricultural ATVs at the UC Davis campus.
2019–2020 Projects
Assessing Farm-Stress and Community Support in Imperial County Farmers
Adrianne Keeney, San Diego State University
Imperial County is a high-need, medically underserved geographic area and has some of the worst overall health outcomes out of all California counties. This study will examine the relationship between stress, physical functioning, mental health, and community networks with Imperial County farmers. Study results and relationships built will be used to help inform outreach and intervention strategies that look at how to engage farmers in community support networks to extend mental health services to reduce farm-related stress.
Evaluating Effectiveness of Story-Telling Tools in the Gear Up for Ag Health and Safety™ Classroom: Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and Appropriate Use of PPE During Emergency Response
The Gear Up for Ag Health and Safety™ program includes current evidence-based content, interactive demonstrations, and distribution of PPE to high school and college-age students involved in agriculture in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and Scandinavia. This project will develop and test new resources and an in-classroom story card activity discussing the importance of appropriate use of PPE in emergency scenarios such as wildfires, flooding, and zoonotic disease.
Hawaii Pesticide Safety Webinar Series
AgSafe, Modesto, CA
Despite technological advances that have led to more enhanced chemistry and target precision, pesticide-related illnesses still occur due to the continued use of pesticides in Hawaii's diverse and robust agricultural industry. At a recent AgSafe educational event in Hawaii, 67% of participants acknowledged having had a pesticide-related illness in their operation and 83% expressed the desire for more pesticide related education. As a result of this experience, AgSafe will develop a pesticide safety webinar series for Hawaiian growers to eliminate barriers that many growers encounter in the completion of traditional classes.
2018–2019 Projects
California Worker Protection Standard Training Video Project
AgSafe, Modesto, CA
The continued prevalence of pesticide use in California’s agricultural industry results in an on-going risk of accidental exposure and subsequent illness by farmworkers. The federal government recently implemented sweeping changes to the Agricultural Worker Protection Standard, the regulation dictating how growers should protect workers from possible exposure. As a result, resources have been developed to educate the industry’s labor force on those new regulations. California, however, implemented meaningfully different regulatory changes and the result has been confusion and frustration by growers specific to the availability of Spanish language training tools for use with farmworkers. The California Worker Protection Standard Training Video Project aims to remedy these concerns as well as allow for additional grower awareness outreach specific to the revised, state-specific regulatory changes and the need for updated farm worker pesticide safety training.
Health and Safety Outreach for Hawaii's Women Farmers
O'ahu Resource Conservation & Development Council, O'ahu, HI
For decades, Hawaii agriculture was dominated by plantation-style agriculture. This production system typically included large operations, male-dominated management, and was often focused on profits at the expense of worker and family well-being. Recent shifts away from plantations toward diversified agriculture have created opportunities for small and medium sized farms; and data indicate that more and more women are taking lead roles in management decisions. Oahu RC&D has been fostering a network of women farmers and ranchers throughout Hawaii, and with funds from WCAHS, will provide support to this network using a combination of technical trainings and print and audiovisual information sharing specifically focused on health and safety topics, including sexual harassment.
Development of Farmworker Health & Safety Educational Materials in Mixteco and Spanish
Radio Bilingüe, California
Radio Bilingüe, the leading U.S. public radio producer and broadcaster serving Latino and Indigenous farmworkers, proposes to collaborate with the California Labor & Workforce Development Agency to develop audio educational materials in Mixteco and Spanish on farmworker health, safety and labor rights. The primary products will be 60- to 90-second creative educational messages in Mixteco and Spanish that will be 1) aired on Radio Bilingüe’s stations throughout California’s agricultural regions, and 2) adaptable for additional educational uses (i.e. farmworker peer networks, direct outreach and training, social media, video production, etc.). These tools will respond to the study recently conducted by the UCLA Labor Center with the Labor Agency identifying best outreach practices and the types of information farmworkers need. Radio Bilingüe brings a decades-long record of developing and implementing culturally appropriate outreach on worker safety and rights via the highly popular medium of radio among low-literacy farmworkers in their languages.
Respiratory Illness Training for Promotores in the Central Valley
Health Initiatives of the Americas (HIA), UC Berkeley Public Health
The Community Health Workers (or Promotores de Salud) model has been proven successful to reach and educate underserved populations such as agricultural workers because they are trusted in the communities and capable of delivering culturally and linguistically appropriate information. The Health Initiatives of the Americas (HIA) has a long history of working and training promotores serving in this population. With the purpose of enriching Promotores knowledge of respiratory illnesses directly related to working in agricultural environments in California, HIA proposes a project with two components, 1) a 4-hour training on respiratory illness for 30 Promotores de Salud in the Central Valley, and 2) reinforcement of the training with a 12-week text messaging campaign to participants in order to instigate and reinforce behavioral changes regarding respiratory illness prevention among agricultural workers.
Pesticide Safety Training for Farmworkers in Arizona
Campesinos Sin Fronteras, Somerton, AZ
Campesinos Sin Fronteras will conduct EPA-WPS standard classes for parents and children from farmworker families. Campesinos will educate the participants on the dangers of pesticides and other toxic agricultural chemicals, enhance their awareness of the dangers to their families, and increase their knowledge of methods of eliminating and reducing these dangers. Campesinos will work with, and draw participants from, three local Head Start centers that serve farmworker children. Campesinos and the Head Start centers will integrate the EPA-WPS classes into the Head Start curricula. Classes will take place from October through March, which corresponds to the local agricultural season.